Friday, September 29, 2006

I got a chance to see these two shows, both at Bergamot Station. Sarah Perry, Caught From Below, sculptures that are compelling, mysterious and very finely done. This one, "Twister" appears to be made from tiny bones. At Hunsaker/Schlesinger until October 28.

And Works On Paper, at Patrick Painter, includes a Jim Shaw that I could take home, but I couldn't, already sold. It was ink on paper, large, of an egg shape hovering near the top with energetic lines swirling. It was gorgeous. Works On Paper runs through October 14th.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

On Sunday, October 22nd, from 10 am until 4 pm, the Art Museum Council of LACMA is holding an outdoor art event: Wet Paint. Artists will set up and work outdoors at Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills and completed artwork will be sold at the end of the day.

Monday, September 18, 2006

I'm very sad. I just learned that my favorite drawing pencil, the blackwing 602, is no longer being made. Apparently production stopped years ago, in 2001. I had plenty of pencils then, too many in fact, so I was blissfully unaware. I realized this morning that all my pencils were getting to the short and stubby side so I decided it might be time to put in an order and couldn't figure out why there weren't any readily available. A quick web search turned up this and this.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Today I took my dog to the vet. He had to get his teeth cleaned and also had a small cyst growing on his tail to be removed. At 5:30 pm he was ready for me to take him home. Unfortunately it wasn't until I got home that I noticed he still had a bandage on his leg. At first I thought it was just an ID tag but on closer inspection realized that they left the IV tubes in his leg! I went to get the phone to call them fast, because they close at 6pm. Before I could get them on the line my dog had pulled the "caps" off of the IV tubes, so blood started just running out. It turned out that the veterinary office was already closed and I had to call an emergency number all the while holding his leg trying to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding. At last I got someone on the phone and they told me to go ahead and pull the tubes out and apply cotton and the bleeding would stop. So there I was with scissors trying to cut the bandage off, which was difficult, because it kept bleeding all over and was very slippery and my dog was quickly losing the desire to cooperate. I finally got the bandage off so I could remove the tubes and sure enough it stopped bleeding. Something tells me I won't be going back to that vet anytime soon!

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Late last night I was walking through my house, barefoot, in the dark, and as I went through the living room I stepped on something weird. I felt something brush rapidly along the inner edge of my heel and it made a quick staccato series of motions. I thought to myself that it would be my luck to step on a scorpion. I turned on the light to see what it was, fully expecting to see a twig, or a leaf, or something that rode in on one of the cats and there it was a scorpion sitting right there on the living room floor. It was huge! Well, at least two, maybe three, inches long. I quickly got a glass and trapped the scorpion under the glass and went looking for a piece of cardboard to slide under the scorpion so I could carry it outside. When I found one and slid it underneath the scorpion it was furious and attacked the glass over and over with amazing speed. I carried it outside and lifted the glass and stepped back. The scorpion just sat there on the card watching me with loathing. I went back inside. This experience makes at least six times I've encountered scorpions in this house. I've got to remember to wear shoes.

Fine Art Greeting Cards

Books:

From San Diego to Vancouver, 100 Artists of the West Coast II covers 100 artists with over 400 full color photographs of their work. The collection includes art from private as well as public collections and installations, including the collections of LACMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art New York, and the New York Public Library to name just a few. I'm happy to be included.